Following the White Rabbit
by xi.writes
Summary: It was only ever meant to be a job - until the Point Man realises he is nothing but a petty thief. / When her politician father is suspected of an affair, Alice becomes an unwitting Mark in a dangerous game of dreams. An exploration of the ethical implications of extraction, featuring a realistic OC and philosophical themes. (Written in 2010, newly revised and reposted.) /COMPLETE/
1. The Mark

_"Eames, I have a job for you."_

 _"What, no 'how have you been these past eight months'? I'm pleased to see you too, Arthur darling."_

 _"Pleasure's all yours. Look, are you in?"_

 _"Depends on the job. What are we doing?"_

 _"Extraction."_

* * *

 **[The Mark]**

At 6:32 on a Thursday evening, a young, impeccably dressed man stood on the platform of the grand Penn station, waiting for the Amtrak Acela Express scheduled to pass through at 6:35. It was the last intercity train of the day to make the 3.5 hour journey from New York to Boston, and in his fedora and pinstripe suit, with a sleek metal briefcase in hand, the man looked like a typical New Yorker who simply couldn't pry himself away from the desk to catch the 5.25.

At 6:35 on the dot, the train streaked into the station. Smoothly, the man stepped into the carriage, his steps a little too purposeful to be simply choosing a seat. A few minutes later, just as the train began to pick up speed, he quietly stepped into Carriage D.

The carriage was already half-occupied. A prim brunette sat by the door, her hands flitting about her neck as she carefully readjusted her silk scarf. She glanced up briefly as he entered, before returning her attention to the large sketchbook resting on her lap. In the stall opposite hers, a suave, older man tapped noisily away at his laptop, while his Indian companion occupied himself with a copy of the day's New York Times.

The newcomer ignored them. Instead, his eyes scanned about the small carriage before zeroing in on the final occupant in the furthest stall. A petite Asian woman had tucked herself in the corner, her face partially hidden behind a curtain of ink-black hair.

The man took two steps forward in her direction, the door rasping closed behind him. "Excuse me," he said.

The young woman glanced up, meeting his dark eyes with a polite look of inquiry.

The man gave hesitant smile, his eyes crinkling at the corners in a manner that was as boyish as it was handsome. He gestured to the empty seat opposite hers. "Do you mind if I sit here?"

"No, please, go ahead," she replied, returning his smile with a soft one of her own before turning her attention back to the pages of her well-worn novel.

Flicking his eyes to the cover, the man's lips twitched in amusement.

She was reading 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'.


	2. The Chemist

" _Ever heard of Cho Jun Xiang?"_

" _The popular Hong Kong official?"_

" _The one. He's running for Chief Executive. The odds are that he'll be voted in."_

" _So what's the problem?"_

" _Let's just say that it is in the best interests of our contractor that he… doesn't. We've been hired to expose any compromising information that will cast Cho in an unfavourable light."_

" _You mean 'scope out the dirt'."_

" _The competition has reason to suspect that he's having an affair."_

" _Upstanding, model citizen Cho Jun Xiang is having an affair? That certainly is… compromising. So how are we going to get to him?"_

" _We don't. He's been trained – the chances of extracting any useful information from him are slim to none. We're going to need a more indirect route."_

" _Who?"_

" _Alice Cho."_

" _His wife?"_

" _No. His daughter."_

* * *

 **[The Chemist]**

6:55. All was quiet in the carriage, save for the rhythmic sounds of tapping fingers on a keyboard and the occasional rustle of newspaper pages.

When the Indian man got up, the girl with the book barely stirred as he passed, too engrossed in the witty, nonsensical banter of the March Hare and the Mad Hatter to pay him any heed. It was the sound of a drink bottle – hers – falling to the floor that jolted her back to reality.

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" the Indian man exclaimed, consternation visible on his round, jovial features. Clumsily, he gave chase to the wayward bottle he'd knocked over in his haste to get to the door.

Within moments, the iced tea was carefully set back in its original place on the table in front of her, even as profuse apologies spouted from the man's lips. The girl with the book merely smiled and waved away the incident, "It's alright, sir, no harm done."

With order re-established, very soon the carriage was restored back to its original tranquility, nothing save the foam on the surface of the tea to belie the fact that it had ever been disturbed in the first place. With her attention returned to the novel, the girl with the book did not see the empty glass tube that was palmed into the man's pocket, or the meaningful glance he shot at his companion as she distractedly took a sip.

At 6:59, she was asleep.


	3. Act One, Scene One

" _Arthur! It's been awhile. Where's Dom?"_

" _Retired. You'll be hard-pressed to tear him away from his children, at least in the foreseeable future."_

" _That's understandable. So, what do you need me to build this time? That_ _is_ _what you're here for, isn't it?"_

"… _Am I that predictable?"_

" _Was that a rhetorical question?"_

" _I was hoping I could interest you in a new project, Ariadne."_

" _Well, it_ _has_ _been awhile. So, yeah, count me in –_ _is it a complex job_ _?"_

" _N_ _othing too complex, but whatever you construct must be flawless. We're dealing with an apparently untrained, but very intelligent Mark, and after what happened in the Fischer project, I don't want to take any chances."_

" _Naturally. I'm too not keen on another trip to Limbo any time soon either. How many layers are we talking?"_

" _Two."_

* * *

 **[Act One, Scene One]**

Late afternoon. The library was cool and even quieter than usual, the last rays of the Boston sun tinting the dusty tomes in a warm, diffuse glow. Wedged between enormous bay windows and the library's ubiquitous rosewood shelves, Alice rubbed her eyes tiredly, fighting the urge to slam her forehead against the desk. _Fifty pages down, two hundred more to go._ She sighed, dutifully making neat notes in the margins of her latest stack of prescribed readings, and willed the painfully dry Supreme Court judgement that she had just finished reviewing to stick in her brain.

A clatter of movement to her left signalled the abrupt arrival of another student. Alice startled, feeling a small twinge of annoyance at having her train of thought disrupted. She wasn't quite sure what made her turn to look at the disturber more fully – the strangely familiar flash of silver cufflinks on a fastidiously ironed sleeve, perhaps – but soon she found herself gazing, as if from a half-forgotten dream, at an equally familiar but unplaceable face. A leather satchel was quietly placed on the desk beside her, before brown eyes, questioning and confident beneath arched brows, turned to meet hers.

Alice suddenly found herself deer-in-headlights, caught in the act of staring. "Hi," she stammered out quickly, before promptly flushing at such a graceless greeting. "I'm sorry, have we-?"

Thankfully, the man cut in, saving her from more embarrassment. "I believe we may have met on the train, a few weeks ago?" His voice was low and just shy of husky. "You read all the way through."

"Oh," she blinked, the memory coming back to her in a hazy rush. For some reason she couldn't recall exactly how she'd ended up here from there, but everything seemed to make perfect sense now. "Yes. Yes, of course."

An awkward pause.

"What are you studying?" the man asked at last, gamely picking up the threads of her short, rather oblique comments.

"Law," Alice replied easily, relieved she was no longer floundering over appropriate things to say. Despite her wariness of strangers, there was just something about this enigmatic man that piqued at her curiosity, and she found herself reluctant to let the conversation come to an end so soon.

Though he didn't seem like the type to make small talk, the man appeared to share the sentiment. "You know, I would have pegged you for something else. English lit, perhaps."

Enigmatic _and_ perceptive. Unbidden, a wry smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. "That would've been the infinitely more preferable option, yes."

The man nodded, and Alice watched as he set out his books and writing materials in precise, unhurried movements. _'The mark of an orderly man'_ her father would say in approving tones. Of course, it could also just as easily have been a sign of a control freak with borderline OCD tendencies depending on who you asked – but then again, Alice's roommate Dinah wasn't exactly a paragon of orderliness herself.

"So why aren't you?" he asked. "Studying English lit, I mean."

Alice shook herself away from her wayward thoughts to answer his question. "My father wanted me to study law, and I don't like to disappoint my father, as a general rule."

"But law isn't so bad, really," she added hastily, not wanting to paint her father as a tyrant – because he wasn't that at all, despite his sternness. "It's just… hard going, sometimes."

The man tapped lightly on a textbook laid out before him with a knowing smirk. "I can sympathise."

Alice glanced at the title and grimaced. In bold, copperplate letters, 'Business Law: Governance and Practice' stood out from the stark red cover. "Aiming for corporate?" she guessed. That would make sense - after all, it was that time of year again where all the megafirms were aggressively recruiting for fresh blood. It would also explain the suits and his no-nonsense attitude.

"Not quite. I'm writing my postgrad thesis on intellectual property law and the free market."

"Oh." She tried to think of something polite to say to that. "That's… interesting."

The man smirked. "It's mind-numbingly dull, actually."

"So why are you studying it?"

He looked at her meaningfully, arching his brow. "Why are you studying law?"

Alice laughed. "Fair point," she conceded. Another pause – less awkward this time – before she abruptly remembered her manners. "I'm sorry, I've forgotten to introduce myself. My name is _—_ "

" _—_ Alice," her companion interrupted. "I know."

Alice's eyes widened in surprise. Anticipating her question, Arthur's eyes flickered to the front of her folder, where 'Alice Cho' was scrawled in neat, cursive letters. Alice blushed. "…Oh," she murmured, before looking up at him expectantly.

The corners of his mouth twitched up in a way that suggested genuine amusement came so rarely he'd almost forgotten how to smile.

"Call me Arthur."


	4. Act One, Scene Two

" _Alice Cho, born Cho Yue-Ling, age 21. Hong Kong_ _citizen_ _of Chinese descent, only daughter of Cho Jun Xiang and wife, Liu Fei.  
_ _It's unlikely that she will know the substantial details of his alleged affair, but even suspicion will give us a better lead than empty rumours."_

" _Wouldn't the wife make a better Mark than the daughter?"_

" _No doubt, but Liu Fei never leaves the house. I've come up with virtually no information on her, which is somewhat_ _suspicious_ _."_

" _So what's the plan, exactly?"_

" _The Mark shares a very close bond with her father. Exploiting that should be easy."_

* * *

 **[Act One, Scene Two]**

"Do you plan on specialising in family law?"

"Not exactly." Alice tangled her fingers nervously in her sleeves. She and Arthur had been talking in hushed, library-appropriate whispers for a while now, and with their shoulders brushing occasionally and Arthur's head bent to catch her muted responses, Alice had never been more conscious of the dimly-lit, strangely intimate atmosphere of their isolated little corner. "I'd like to be a mediator."

Arthur nodded, and there was something so attentive and patient about his manner that the usually reserved Alice felt a little less tongue-tied in his presence. "Part of the reason why I have misgivings about studying law is that I hate confrontation," she confessed, thankful that the compulsory litigation module of her course was well and truly behind her. "I mean, I acknowledge the merits of adversarial system, at least in principle, but sometimes I wonder about the outcomes it incentivises – particularly in civil cases. Wouldn't it be better for our justice system, not to mention to the mutual benefit of the parties in dispute, to encourage compromise?"

"Why would anyone compromise if they know they have the upper hand?" Arthur countered, leaning back into his chair. "It's human nature to be selfish and self-serving, even at the expense of others. That's not exactly something you can change."

"Perhaps you simply need to have more faith in humanity."

The sardonic, distant gleam that suddenly appeared in his eyes made Alice a little uneasy. "I'd sooner rely on reason." Arthur replied archly. "In my experience, people have a habit of letting you down. What was that quote again? 'The condition of man is a condition of war of everyone against everyone' and all that."

Alice sighed, shaking her head. "Hobbes was a very cynical man with a rather pessimistic view of the world, Arthur."

Arthur merely smirked. "Only to an idealist, Alice," he replied, but his tone was teasing, light, and immediately diffused the growing tension in the room.

The clock struck five.

From outside the bay windows, Alice heard the sounds of a student rally starting on the lawn. As more and more students streamed onto the grassy space, including a few faces she recognised from her classes, it soon became evident what the topic of protest was. 'My little black dress does not mean 'yes'!' read one placard. 'Stand with survivors!' read another.

"Damn, that's earlier than expected," Arthur muttered under his breath, frowning. Alice blinked, surprised that the gathering seemed to affect him so much. "What?" she asked, only half-teasingly, wondering why he looked so discomfited. "Have you got a different view on our Title Nine rights?"

Arthur shook his head. "No, it's not that. Title Nine is an important mechanism for addressing rape culture. I… well. I guess you could say that, in certain circumstances, I'm not particularly fond of crowds."

Alice nodded understandingly, absently watching as the rally gradually swelled in size. Having grown up in the frenzied crush and never-ending lights of Hong Kong, she too, had developed a growing appreciation for wide, open spaces and a calmer pace of life. Not to mention regular, unimpeded views of actual blue sky. Lost in her own thoughts, it took several beats for her to realise that Arthur had suddenly fallen quiet. When Alice turned back, she found him looking down at his hands, as though he was silently deliberating with himself. Abruptly, his warm, brown eyes flickered back up to hers. "Are you hungry, Alice?"

Alice blinked, taken aback at the sudden shift in topic. "…I suppose?" she replied hesitantly.

Arthur quirked his brows, questioning and hopeful. "Dinner, then?"

Alice found herself at complete loss for words. "Are you… asking me out?" she finally managed, blushing so hard she could feel the heat to the tips of her ears.

Arthur smiled, and it softened the corners of his stiff, serious-by-default features. "I'm trying," he replied wryly.

Alice bit her lip, her heart thundering so loudly that she was sure Arthur could hear it through her chest. It wasn't exactly a common occurrence for her to be on the receiving end of a handsome stranger's solicitations, and Alice found herself hopelessly out of her depth. On one hand, Arthur seemed nice, and normal enough. On the other hand, she'd literally just met the man. What if he was secretly a criminal?

'Oh, what the heck,' she finally decided. 'Might as well carpe diem it for once. Besides, Dinah would kill me if I refused.'

Before she could open her mouth to take Arthur up on his offer, a loud buzzing pierced the silence, startling them both. "Sorry," Alice murmured embarrassedly, hurriedly fetching her phone from the purse by her feet, silently cursing at whomever was ringing at such an inopportune time. "One moment."

When she saw the name flashing across her screen, Alice frowned in confusion.

Why was her father's secretary calling _her_?


	5. Act One, Scene Three

" _Let me get this straight. Are you telling me that you plan to_ _seduce_ _the girl into spilling the beans?"_

"' _Seduce' is hardly the right word, Eames. Placed in such a vulnerable position, the Mark will have no one but me to turn to for help. It should be easy under the circumstances to gain her trust and perhaps charm her— what?"_

" _Oh, don't mind me, Arthur. I'm simply trying to put 'you' and 'charm' in the same sentence without sniggering."_

"… _Any more witty quips you'd like to share with us, Eames?"_

" _Plenty. But continue, Mr. Bond. I'm sure I can stave off my laughter for a little longer."_

* * *

 **[Act One, Scene Three]**

"I'm sorry, I have to take this call," Alice murmured hastily to Arthur. She stood up, angling her body away slightly for privacy. "Hello?" she answered in rapid Cantonese before belatedly remembering that the British-educated Mr. Wong preferred to communicate in English. Reverting back again, she added, "Yes, Mr. Wong?"

"Miss Cho." The gruff reply was grave, although the clipped British tones sounded more polished than ever. "I regret to inform you of some very bad news."

Alice froze, heart sinking, immediately thinking of her father. The last time they'd spoken over the phone was a few days ago ('Had it really been so long ago?' she wondered) during her brief visit to New York City. There was an upcoming conference in Los Angeles that he needed to attend, he'd said. "Did something happen to my father? Is he okay?!"

"There was a… car accident, on the way back to the hotel." Mr. Wong replied slowly, choosing his words with deliberate care. "Mr. Cho is in ER now. I've very sorry to say this, but he's… not in the best state at the moment."

Alice felt numb. When she was younger, her parents had made her go through courses in emergency protocol, in preparation for situations such as this. But no course could have prepared her for the news that her father could be dying as they spoke – and the horrifying realisation that she was hundreds of miles away.

"Miss Cho?" Mr. Wong's worried voice crackled over the phone after a minute had passed with nothing but a chilling silence hanging between them.

When Alice finally spoke again, her voice was curiously flat. "Which hospital?"

"The Kaiser Foundation."

"Thank you, Mr. Wong."

"Of course, Miss Cho. I will be in touch. If there is anything I can do, please call."

Slowly, Alice snapped the phone cover shut, her arm falling limply to her side. She didn't realise she was pitching forward dangerously until she was steadied by a pair of strong, bracing hands. "Alice?"

"Alice, look at me." The voice was more urgent this time.

"Huh?" she mumbled. Gradually, Arthur's worried face and intense, dark eyes swam back into focus. "Oh. Arthur."

"What happened?" he demanded.

Alice bit her lip. "I'm afraid I'll have to decline your dinner invitation tonight," she replied shakily. "My father's been in a car accident. It's… not looking good. I need to get to L.A. immediately." Concern was written all over his face as she gently broke away from his grip. "Please excuse me, Arthur. I should leave for the airport. It was nice meeting you though."

"Wait," he said, hurriedly slipping on his expertly tailored suit jacket. "Do you need a ride? My car's parked outside. I'll drive you."

"You don't need to do that," she tried to protest. "I can hail a cab."

"Alice, you look like you're about to faint," he said bluntly.

She forced a smile. "I'm alright, really."

Arthur shot her another disbelieving look. "Of course you are."

"Look," he said, more gently, when she still looked like she wanted to protest. "It's the least I can do."

Alice wavered. "Are you sure this won't be taking you away from any other commitments?"

"Apart from a dinner that I'm taking a raincheck on, no."

"But…"

"Alice." His voice brooked no arguments.

Her shoulders slumped, the fight leaving her. "Okay." This time, the smile she shot him was genuine, and infinitely grateful. "…Thank you, Arthur."

In a manner that was as steadying as it was chivalrous, he placed a guiding hand on the small of her back. "Let's go."


	6. Act One, Scene Four

" _I'm relieved, Arthur darling. I was afraid I'd have to learn Cantonese."_

" _Rest assured, Eames, I'm well aware of your limits."_

"… _Your confidence in me is flattering, truly."_

" _Have you done your research?"_

" _I tailed the target for two weeks. Forging the secretary should be a walk in the park."_

" _Good. Because I also need you to do something else…"_

* * *

 **[Act One, Scene Four]**

The library was oddly empty for a weeknight. The few students that _were_ present, however, all looked up as she and Arthur passed. Alice shuddered. There was something entirely unnerving in the way that they stared, unblinkingly, pinning her with their eyes as the pair quickly made their way to the doors.

No – not at _her_ – she soon realised, after she'd self-consciously given herself a once-over to make sure there wasn't toilet paper stuck to her foot or something similarly embarrassing. No, their attention was fixated on Arthur.

Alice frowned. 'That's strange,' she thought. 'Why would they _—_ '

As if he could sense the questions forming on her tongue, Arthur spoke. "Do you need to grab anything from your place before heading to the airport?"

His question immediately brought more pressing concerns back to the forefront of her mind. "No," she replied after a moment's thought, immensely relieved that they'd left the gawking students behind as they walked out into the chilly evening air. "Nothing I can't get in L.A. on short notice."

The sounds of the student rally were growing louder on the turf. It appeared as though the protesters were preparing to march. Pace quickening, Arthur led her in the opposite direction, heading towards a quieter street which ran just behind the stately old library. "My car's just there," he said, gesturing at a classic black convertible parked on the curb. Somehow, Alice wasn't the least bit surprised. It seemed just the thing that the equally sleek and old-fashioned Arthur would have picked out. Smoothly, he opened the door on the passenger side and Alice nodded her thanks as she quickly slid in.

The events of the next few seconds happened very fast.

With his attention on her, Arthur was caught completely unaware by the tall, masked man who leapt at him from behind the nondescript white van parked just behind them. One brutal cuff to the head later, and Arthur went down. Alice had no time to scream before she was dragged out of the car by another masked man, shorter and more rotund than the first. A large, meaty hand clamped around her mouth, muffling all sounds of struggle as she fought desperately in his grasp.

"Hold still," he rasped, before shooting a glance at the unconscious Arthur. "What're we gonna do with him? The girl was supposed to be alone!"

"Bring him along," the other said. "We've done what we've been paid to do. _They_ can decide what to do with the extra."

Alice's head spun. 'Who _were_ these people? What did they want with her?' Cursing herself for wearing her pretty but supremely useless ballet flats on the one day stilettos would have come in handy, Alice only had time to land one wild kick at her attacker's kneecap before a sharp knock was dealt to the back of her head.

She felt cool liquid splashing on her face and the scent of foreign chemical compounds coiling in the air – and then everything went black.


	7. Act Two, Scene One

**[Act Two, Scene One]**

When she finally came to, it took a few disorientating moments for Alice to realise that she was conscious again, and that her impaired vision was actually due to the lack of adequate lighting in the room and not because she'd suddenly gone blind. Her head pounded in a particularly excruciating manner, and there was a half-numb, half-throbbing feeling in her arms – arms, as she all-too-painfully discovered when she made a cautious attempt to move them, that were bound and roughly tied behind her back.

Abruptly, the warm surface she was leaning on shifted. Alice gave a shriek of surprise, the sharp sound instantly muffled by the gag over her mouth.

There was an answering and equally incoherent grunt.

Alice jerked, muscles tensing, before coming to the sheepish realisation that the noise, and the corresponding warm surface she was leaning on, was in fact Arthur. The two of them were seated on the floor, tied back-to-back, their hands bound by the same length of rough rope pulled taut over their wrists.

There was a beat of silence. Then, Arthur attempted to speak again, punctuating his words with a nudge of his arms. It took a few more nudges, followed by grunts that grew increasingly more frustrated, before it dawned on her that he wanted them both to stand up.

When Alice had been eight years old, her father had taken her on a holiday to Macau – a way, perhaps, of assuaging his guilt for missing her birthday two years in a row. Her younger self had been awed by the pretty buildings, the spectacular firework displays, and the friendly street performers who were always happy to take a picture with an excited little girl with a gap-toothed grin. But most of all, Alice remembered the dancers and acrobats, who could twist and turn and move so effortlessly in near-impossible ways. They'd made it seem so easy.

Forced now, thirteen years later, to perform a much simpler feat, Alice realised that it was anything but easy – or effortless. Attempting to stand with her hands tied behind her back, bound to another person who was suffering in exactly the same way, only added to her swiftly growing collection of bruises and gave her a whole new appreciation for those Macau acrobats she'd admired as a child. Frustrated, exhausted and a second away from uncharacteristically breaking out a string of colourful (albeit muffled) Cantonese curses, Alice was ready to give up altogether before their trial-and-error efforts finally paid off and she miraculously found herself and Arthur back in an upright position, panting for breath.

Hesitantly, she bumped her fingers into his. 'What now?' she tried to communicate, hoping he had a better plan than she did to extricate them out of this mess. A strict Hong Kong education coupled with the etiquette training her mother had insisted on had pronounced her "accomplished" enough, but Alice suddenly found herself wishing that she'd taken lessons in something a little more useful. She was fairly certain that none of her classes had covered 'what to do in non-hypothetical hostage situations', and her white cotton dress, while appropriately ladylike, wasn't exactly the best storage place for conveniently placed knives. (If Alice, of course, had actually been in the habit of carrying knives in the first place.)

Apparently Arthur did (or something of a sharp and useful persuasion, Alice hoped) as he began to strain their tangled arms towards the left pocket of his pants. A few more awkward movements later saw a triumphant Arthur successfully extracting out a small Swiss army knife from its depths, but not before the back of Alice's hand had most thoroughly familiarised itself with some rather… inappropriate places. Mortified and supremely thankful for the darkness that hid her engine-red cheeks, Alice was quite certain that she'd never be able to look at the back of Arthur's pants the same way again.

It took a few fumbling attempts on Arthur's part, but eventually their bonds were sawed off, and the stubborn ends of the rough-hewn rope blessedly fell to the ground. Alice heaved a sigh of relief. Reaching up with stiff hands, she yanked the wretched gag from her mouth, her muscles screaming with every move.

"Are you hurt?" Arthur's disembodied voice cut smoothly through the darkness. Squinting, Alice could just make out the outline of his straight-backed figure, a few paces from where she stood.

"I'm fine." Her hands stung in a few places where Arthur's blade had nicked by accident, but things could have been much worse, given the circumstances. "How's your head?" she asked, recalling the sickening blow that he'd been dealt.

"I'll live."

Alice blinked, taken aback by the dismissive tone. "Are you… sure?" she tried again.

"Trust me," he replied dryly. "I've had far worse."

Alice frowned. What could the seemingly straight-laced, well-educated, upper-middle class Arthur have done to merit 'far worse'? "What, worse than this?" she couldn't help but ask.

"Never mind," Arthur said quickly, retreating back into more distant tones. He clearly wasn't willing to broach the subject. "I'm fine, honestly."

Alice said nothing, suddenly remembering that for all his charm, Arthur was still very much a stranger to her. An awkward silence descended upon the pair, before Alice decided to do something more constructive than standing around helplessly. Reaching out with hesitant, seeking fingers, she gingerly felt her way around the room in a halfhearted attempt to gain her bearings. Her trembling fingertips traced along the smooth, dusty edges of wooden barrels and chilly glass bottles, stacked side-by-side in orderly rows.

It appeared they were in a wine cellar of some sort.

"Alice," Arthur spoke up again. A few thumps and shuffles could be heard as he slowly picked his way around the room. "Is Cho Jun Xiang your father?"

His abrupt question brought memories of her father's accident rushing back up again. Alice fought an almost crippling rise of panic before the more rational part of her brain ruthlessly tamped it down.

'Worry about _Ba Ba_ later', it told her sternly. 'Focus on getting yourself out now.'

 _But, oh God, he could be_ _dead_ _…_

"Yes." she said, forcing the insidious voice away to answer Arthur's question. "He is."

 _Is. Present tense._

"He must be important."

"I suppose." Her voice trailed, wondering where this was going. "He's a state official, reasonably popular. There were rumours that the Election Committee wants him as the new Chief Executive, but I haven't being following it as closely as I probably should."

There was a pause as Arthur digested this information. Not for the first time, Alice wished she could tell what he was thinking. The generally impassive Arthur was even more difficult to read when she couldn't see his face.

"Listen," he finally said. "I heard the men talking on the way here, when they'd thought I was still unconscious. Their employer wants access to Cho Jun Xiang. They knew where you'd be. They were simply waiting for the signal that you'd been lured out."

Alice blinked. "Do you mean to say," she said slowly, "that the phone call was the lure?"

"It's likely."

Despite these worrying revelations, Alice hardly dared to allow herself to hope. "So there was no car accident?" she whispered.

Her father was okay. But that meant…

Her eyes widened. "Mr. Wong deceived me."

Alice didn't know what to think.


	8. Act Two, Scene Two

**[Act Two, Scene Two]**

The first time she'd walked in on her parents fighting, Alice had been twelve years old. It'd been an ordinary Friday afternoon, not long after she'd finished school, when she'd opened the front door of her house to the pervading sense of something being very, very wrong.

"You need help!" her father was shouting. Alice tightened her grasp on her backpack in alarm. Her father never shouted. "I'm trying to help you!"

"Help? You want to send me to God-knows-where and you call that _help_?" Even from the doorway, Alice could hear her mother's angry sobs. It was the first time Alice had ever heard her cry.

"Liu Fei _—_ "

"—this is my house as much as yours! You can't make me leave, you heartless bastard!"

Alice didn't stay to hear the rest. Her English test paper, with the large 'A+' scrawled in the corner in red ink, fell forgotten on the doormat as she turned tail and ran, consumed with the need to _just get away_.

It had been pure chance that she'd run – literally – into her father's secretary, on his way to deliver some urgent documents to his boss. In the middle of the sidewalk and utterly out of his element, with an armful of crying girl and absolutely no clue on how to handle the situation (this wasn't part of the job description, he was certain), Mr. Wong had done the only thing he could. "There, there, Miss Cho," he attempted mechanically, handing her an immaculately starched handkerchief from his lapel pocket. "Here, I'll walk you home."

"NO!" she cried out, startling an elderly woman walking on the other side of the road. Her pigtails whipped from side to side, smacking her face in stinging lashes with the speed of her movements.

Mr. Wong hastily held up his hands. "Okay, okay, not home then." Dismayed, he'd glanced around, desperately seeking for inspiration (or perhaps divine intervention) to quieten the crying Alice. Catching sight of a nearby street-vendor, he quickly bought her an ice-cream cone.

Alice remembered thinking how childish it'd been – after all, ice-cream would've made everything better had she been five, not _twelve_ – but as the icy, sweet taste of red bean and vanilla flooded her tongue, replacing the salty residue of tears in her mouth, somehow, Alice felt inexplicably comforted. Gradually, sobs turned to sniffles, and sniffles to the blowing of her nose. Obvious relief spread over Mr. Wong's face and he noticeably relaxed in his seat on the park bench beside her. "Do you…" he began awkwardly. "Do you want to talk about it, Miss Cho?"

' _Please don't'_ , his face said.

As Alice stared up at the man who'd she'd known almost all of her life, the unobtrusive, loyal shadow who tailed her father and always nodded at her politely at the office when she visited (she was always "Miss Cho" with him, never "Yue-Ling" or "Ling-Ling" or "Alice"), suddenly, she felt something like a dam breaking inside, and the words came tumbling out.

She told him about the perfect score on the English test at school which she'd been so eager to show her mother – who'd been so distant and so quick to snap at her these days that Alice was trying extra-hard to please to compensate – and then the alarming fight that she'd walked in on after her father's driver, Mr. Zhao, had dropped her home after school. And Mr. Wong, with his lightly greying hair and awkward mannerisms and staid, serious features, had simply sat and listened, a wispy but comforting presence by her side. Alice had been struck with his similarity to those tin soldiers her younger cousin collected in neat rows on his bookshelf, like the sad one from the fairy tale who loved a paper ballerina and suffered so much but never got his happily-ever-after.

"Everyone fights sometimes," he replied at last, after they'd fallen into a long silence. "I'm sure… I'm sure your parents love each other very much, just like they love you, and that it's all blown over by now."

He said it with such quiet assurance that Alice almost believed him.

"Why don't I take you home?" Mr. Wong tried again. "They must be very worried about you now."

So Alice had let herself be led back and ushered back into that large and imposing house, where her father exchanged quick, quiet words to his secretary before sending him off and shutting the door.

"Ling-Ling," he'd immediately asked. "What did you say to Mr. Wong?" Even then, her father's public image had been his first and foremost concern.

Head bowed, Alice admitted quietly that she'd told Mr. Wong she'd witnessed her parents fighting.

Her father's eyes narrowed. "Did you tell him everything you overheard?"

She shook her head, looking up at him apprehensively. "... _Ba Ba_ , are you mad at me?"

He sighed. "No, I'm not mad at you, _bao bei_." Bending down to convey the importance of his next statement, he regarded her with grave, serious eyes. "But next time, remember not to air dirty laundry where others can see it, understand? Family matters are private matters."

She nodded. Even at twelve, Alice had been a perceptive, obedient girl. It would never happen again.

"…Are you and _Ma Ma_ getting a divorce?" she asked, dreading the answer.

Her father reached out, patting her gently on the head. "No, Ling-Ling. We aren't getting a divorce. But your _Ma Ma_ is… ill, so you have to be a good girl and not upset her, alright?"

Alice nodded again.

"Will she be sent away?"

He sighed. "No. But your Auntie will be coming to stay with us, to help us look after _Ma Ma_. At least temporarily." Ruffling her hair lovingly, he continued, "Don't worry, Ling-Ling. Everything is going to be just fine."

And to the twelve-year-old Alice, everything had been. Soon after, her aunt had moved in, and she never heard her parents fighting again. And though he'd never mentioned the incident and Alice never really spoke privately with Mr. Wong after that, she never forgot his awkward kindness and the ice-cream he'd bought to comfort her when there'd been no one else to turn to.

* * *

 _'But this phonecall…'_

The unpleasant thought abruptly jolted her back to the present. Alice attempted to push away her blossoming suspicions with a vehement shake of her head. "Mr. Wong can't have been involved. It must be some misunderstanding."

Because it didn't make any sense. Mr. Wong was like a particularly distant uncle – frugal with his affections, but not uncaring.

Alice frowned. "Surely there has to be another explanation."

Arthur remained silent.

"There's just no way!" she cried, although she wasn't quite sure who she was trying to convince any more. "Mr Wong's proved himself fiercely loyal for over fifteen years! Why would he betray my father?"

"Money? Power?" Arthur countered, as blunt as ever. "Incentives enough for any man, however loyal, to turn on his employer."

"He was my father's most trusted colleague," she was quick to argue. "And my father rarely trusts anyone."

Arthur gave a humourless laugh. "I think you'll find," he said. "it's the ones you trust that hurt you the most." The bitterness in his voice made Alice question whether he was speaking from experience – or as a warning to her. Again, she wondered how much the mysterious Arthur was really holding back from her.

But Alice said nothing. Without any real evidence, she refused to jump to any conclusions. She would give Mr. Wong the benefit of the doubt. After all, even criminals were given that right, she reasoned, and Mr. Wong, who'd never shown himself to be anything but reliable, deserved at least that.

Thoughts of her father's secretary immediately fell by the wayside when her questing fingers suddenly met with what appeared to be the cold metal of a doorknob. "I found a way out!" she cried triumphantly, before instantly deflating when the door refused to budge. "Unfortunately, it's locked."

"Let me see." Despite knowing he was heading her way, Alice still jerked when Arthur's fingers brushed against her back. "Sorry," he murmured, before moving in front of her to inspect the lock.

A long moment passed.

"Do you have a hairpin on you?"

Alice reached up, extricating a bobby pin from her loose and no doubt now messy bun. It took some time for her to locate Arthur's outstretched hand, but she eventually managed to place the innocuous item on his waiting palm.

"You know how to pick locks?" she asked sceptically, as she twisted her hair back out of her face in quick, mindless movements.

"I was bored over the summer," Arthur replied wryly. "It seemed like an interesting challenge."

Alice smiled. She imagined it would be.

Amusement quickly faded as the soft scrap of metal on metal reached her ears. More tinkling, and then a click. With a creak, the door slowly swung open. Alice tensed, preparing for the worst, but they were only met with more darkness.

"Ready, then?" Arthur asked.

Alice took a deep breath. "…Ready as I'll ever be."


	9. Act Two, Scene Three

**[Act Two, Scene Three]**

The doorway they'd discovered was surprisingly small. Even the petite Alice, who barely reached 5'2" on a good day, had to stoop considerably in order to fit through the tiny wooden frame. Rough stone walls scraped against her extended fingertips as she stepped into the narrow passageway, stumbling blindly into the thick, cloying darkness.

"Careful," Arthur said lowly, a few paces in front of her. "There are steps."

Alice took heed. Edging her foot out to test the ground before her, she managed to ease herself onto the next step without tripping over the elevated ledge. Slowly, they ascended the staircase in silence, hunched over almost double to avoid knocking their heads on the low ceiling. Alice could only imagine how uncomfortable it must be for the much taller Arthur, but not once did she hear him grumble or curse or hit his head.

Without a light to guide them, the passage seemed to go on forever. The uncomfortable stomach-dropping feeling of anticipating a step that wasn't there was the only warning Alice had of finally reaching level ground.

Suddenly, Arthur came to a standstill, stopping so abruptly that Alice narrowly missed stumbling into him. "We've hit a wall," he said, by manner of explanation. "With luck, it's an exit, and not a dead end."

"Is there a lever or a lock of some sort?" Alice asked.

A pause, and then _—_ "Found it." With an ominous creak, the wall slid open.

Alice blinked, momentarily blinded by the bright light flooding into the dusty passageway where they stood. Thankfully, Arthur's figure blocked out most of glare.

"Where are we?" she whispered nervously, half-expecting someone to jump out and discover them at any minute.

"Come and see," he replied, ducking out to let her through. "There's no one around."

* * *

As her eyes adjusted to the light, Alice found herself in a lavishly decorated suite of rooms. Heavy embroidered drapes fell from the expansive floor-to-ceiling windows, and the air was thick with the opulent scent of rose and bergamot, emanating from the numerous scented candles scattered around the room. When she turned to glance back at the way they'd come, her lips twitched.

"A bookcase?" she asked, watching with a rather bemused air as Arthur carefully pushed the redwood shelf of aged Shakespearean texts back into place, seamlessly hiding the dark passage to the cellar from view. "How… Agatha Christie."

Occupied with dusting his hands off, Arthur simply quirked a brow at her. In the bright, golden glow of the room, Alice was stunned to see that from the tips of his slicked-back hair to the hem of his fitted Armani suit, Arthur looked as impeccable as always. There was nothing to suggest that he'd been beaten, tied up and thrown into a wine cellar, and had, only seconds before, emerged from a secret passage that probably hadn't been cleaned out for centuries.

Alice frowned. 'How on earth did he manage to _do_ that?' she wondered, before quickly glancing down, certain that her delicate cotton dress must now resemble a sooty grey rag. But it, too, was as pristine and white and unwrinkled as ever.

Alice didn't have time to dwell on the utter impossibility of it all, for Arthur was grabbing her by the arm and pulling her into a corner as the sound of fast-approaching footsteps and coy laughter grew louder and louder on the opposite side on the heavy oak door. The pair dived behind an upholstered loveseat and not a moment too soon, for with the clumsy turn of the doorknob, the door swung open and a couple tumbled through, all arms and legs and graceless tangle of entwined limbs.

Peeking out from behind a strategically placed cushion, Alice saw that the striking, statuesque pair was dressed in extravagant masquerade costumes. If the sounds of distant music and conversational chatter curling through the open entrance were anything to go by, the ball they'd clearly been attending was very much still in full swing.

The sounds of revelling and laughter were abruptly cut short as the man backed the woman into the door, the weight of their bodies slamming it shut. Immediately, the man dove for the woman's neck, planting open-mouthed kisses along the creamy expanse of skin as his hands skimmed over the ample curves of her breasts and hips. She moaned in response, hooking a long leg around his waist as she arched wantonly into his touch.

With a barely audible squeak, Alice whipped around and averted her gaze, moving so fast that she almost knocked heads with the nearby Arthur. Bright red and feeling like a voyeur who'd intruded on something that she most definitely shouldn't be seeing – or hearing – Alice bit her lip and tried to ignore the amorous noises and sounds of discarded clothing falling to the floor.

The door of the adjoining bedroom slammed. A long, awkward silence fell on the two remaining in the room.

"Well, that was… unexpected," Arthur said, breaking the silence. There was carefully suppressed amusement in the tone of his voice, as if he was silently laughing over a joke only he knew the punch-line to.

Flushing even harder – strangely feeling as if _she_ _'d_ been the one he'd walked in on – Alice gazed fixedly at everywhere but Arthur's face. "We should go," she said, in part to steer them back to the more pressing concern of escape, but mostly just as an excuse to change the subject. "We can't stay here forever."

"True," Arthur replied, the teasing note not yet gone from his voice. "Who knows what else we might find?"

Alice glared. She'd appreciate this unexpected revealing of an actual sense of humour from Arthur if it hadn't appeared at her embarrassed expense.

Blithely, he stood up, moving silently to the window to peer cautiously out into the darkness beyond.

"Can we escape via the window?" Alice wondered.

"Not unless you fancy a three-story jump."

Emotions now in check, Alice, too, stood up, weaving deftly around the articles of clothing strewn about the soft, carpeted floor to crack open the door leading to the hall. It led to a long corridor, as richly decorated as the suite they currently hid in. Along its length, guests drifted and chattered and mingled in small groups and intimate pairs. There was no way they could walk out without attracting attention to themselves.

Easing the door closed and locking it for good measure, Alice told Arthur as much. "We need some sort of… some sort of disguise."

Two pairs of eyes fell to the dress and the discarded Venetian masks at the same time.

"Do you think she'll miss it?" she wondered guiltily. Privileged from birth and denied very little all her life, Alice never thought there'd come a day where she'd be seriously contemplating theft.

Arthur glanced at the bedroom door, before flicking his eyes back to her. "Not for a while, I'd imagine," he replied dryly.

Alice blushed. She really didn't need that reminder. Biting her lip, she looked around, searching for a good place to get changed.

Wordlessly, Arthur turned around, offering her a modicum of privacy as best as the circumstances allowed. Shooting surreptitious looks at his rigid back, Alice hastily slipped out of one white dress and into another, still warm from the owner's lingering body heat. Very quickly, though, Alice realised she had a problem on her hands.

"…Arthur?" she called out.

He misinterpreted the questioning in her voice for chastisement. "I promise I'm not peeking," he said, still facing the door. It was said in so impassive a tone that Alice could almost believe that he wasn't being cheeky.

"No, it's not that," she said awkwardly. For the umpteenth time, she wondered how she'd managed to get herself into such a bizarre situation. "It's just… could you lace me up?"

Arthur turned around, a barely perceptible tic in his jaw. "Sure," he said, after a pause.

Alice's pulse stuttered as she felt him draw close. From the corner of her eye, she saw his hands reach out to fumble at the complex crisscross of laces at her back. Slowly, the bodice began to tighten over her slim frame.

Glancing down at herself, Alice couldn't help but admire the beautiful costume. Soft white feathers lined the bodice, and the puffy tulle skirt was embroidered with a scattering of tiny crystal beads that glittered in the light, as if a million water droplets had been caught within its densely layered depths. As short as Alice was, the dress fell to just below her knee rather than at mid-thigh, oddly reminiscent of the tutu the prima ballerina had worn in her dance school's rendition of _Swan Lake_.

Her sartorial musings were interrupted by the accidental brush of Arthur's hand along her exposed spine. Alice shivered, heartbeat leaping. He was so close she could feel his breath tickle the fine hairs on the nape of her neck with each quiet exhale, until he finally stepped away, task complete.

Alice quickly bent down, picking up the dainty feathered mask that completed her ensemble in an attempt to regain her sense of equilibrium. Slipping it on, she gave herself a final once-over before taking a deep breath and turning around. "How do I look?" she asked.

"You should let your hair down," Arthur replied. "You'll be harder to recognise, at least from far away."

Swiftly, Alice pulled out the tie that kept her hair up, shaking the long locks loose so that it fell in messy waves around her face. "How's that?"

There was a strange look in Arthur's eyes.

"Arthur?" she tried again.

He blinked, and the look was gone. "You look lovely," he said perfunctorily, as he, too, picked up the black velvet mask on the parlour table and slipped it over his face. "Shall we?"

She smiled, graciously accepting his proffered arm as if they were both going out to attend a party, and not to make a mad break off the premises.

"We shall."


	10. Act Two, Scene Four

**[Act Two, Scene Four]**

If there was one game Alice was good at playing, it was 'Let's Pretend'. After all, she'd been playing it most her life.

It was her father who'd taught her the rules. She'd been barely six then, sobbing because the bigger girls down the road had stolen her favourite doll, and Cho Jun Xiang had sat her on his knee and told her, without preamble, just how much of a little fool she was. It had been the complete lack of sympathy in his voice, rather than the words themselves, that had shocked her into silence.

"They stole your doll because you were any easy target. And by running home crying, you let them see just how much power they have over you," he'd said, though not unkindly. These were big concepts for a little girl, but Alice listened very carefully indeed, knowing that her father only spoke like this when what he was saying was very, very important. "But if you pretend that it doesn't hurt, then they can't hurt you, you see? Like a still lake – reflecting everything, revealing nothing. So smile, Ling-Ling. There's a good girl."

And so Alice smiled. She smiled at the girls who'd stole her favourite doll, pretending their taunts the next day didn't affect her at all. She smiled at the boy at school who'd only said he liked her to date her best friend. And later, when her mother became a woman with a stranger's eyes and 'home' was the last place she wanted to be, Alice kept smiling, pretending – for her father's sake, and her mother's sake, and perhaps, her own sake – that life was perfect and she was blissfully happy and absolutely nothing was wrong. Because her father was a public man, an important man, and people needed to see them smile.

" _Smile, Ling-Ling. There's a good girl."_

Calling upon her father's words, the smile came easily to Alice's face as she exited the lavish suite with a light hand on Arthur's arm, even though her palms were sweaty and she was terrified, certain that they'd be caught. It was a wide, sweet smile, too carefree to be real, but it proved to be enough as they'd swept down the corridor with no one the wiser.

Alice's shoulders relaxed a fraction when they turned the corner and ducked into a more private alcove at the end, which opened out into an expansive mezzanine view of the dazzling ballroom two stories below. Enormous crystal chandeliers hung from the frescoed, gilded ceilings, the light bouncing off each glittering, transparent surface like a thousand miniature golden suns. Large mirrors on the walls only magnified the ostentatious, surreal quality of the room, and the marble floor was already densely packed with costumed guests in all manner of colourful finery. Although the wine was plentiful and the music frenzied, everyone appeared to be behaving with perfect decorum and social grace, much to Alice's relief.

"If we mingle with the guests, we should be able to find an exit on the ground level where we can slip out undetected," Arthur murmured, the muted tones giving his voice an almost sensual quality as he whispered into her ear. Alice's lips parted, her pulse leaping at the light graze of his lips, while her mind fought desperately for clarity and reason. To any passerby who chanced upon them standing there, Arthur, with his arm lightly around her waist and his head dipped low against hers, appeared to be just another gentleman whispering sweet nothings to his lady friend. "There's a door at the other end of the room leading out. It's probably our best bet."

Alice nodded, breaking away from Arthur's half-embrace as she led them both to a winding iron-wrought staircase that opened out into a discreet corner of the ballroom below. When she could trust herself to speak in a reasonably normal, steady voice, she looked up at Arthur, an almost impish gleam in her eyes. "…You can dance, right?"

By then they'd reached the bottom of the staircase. Arthur merely bowed in response, slowly backing her into the room as the pianist struck up a waltz. His arms came around her, and then they were dancing.

Brightly masked people blurred into kaleidoscopes of brilliant colour and ambient noise as Alice was whirled around the dance floor. As the clock hands on the north wall edged closer to the thirteenth hour, Alice pushed aside her worries and lost herself to the music. 'Grand Waltz in E-flat major', she thought blissfully, closing her eyes as Arthur dipped her with the beat. She didn't realise she'd actually spoken out loud until she opened her eyes to find him staring down at her with brows raised, a droll, questioning look in his eyes.

Alice blushed. "I like classical music," she said defensively. "I grew up listening to the late-classical and romantic composers. This piece has always been my favourite Chopin waltz, but I never got advanced enough on the piano to play it."

"It's nice," Arthur conceded, as he whirled her on the floor, moving strategically towards the far garden exit. "Though I prefer jazz myself – Gershwin, Fitzgerald, Piaf. French opera, too, on occasion."

He twirled her smoothly, before pulling her gently back into the circle of his arms. "You don't seem surprised," he murmured, when Alice only gave a noncommittal hum.

She smiled, and caught up in the moment, an uncharacteristically arch response slipped out before her brain could censor it. "I would've been _surprised_ if you said you were a closet fan of Justin Bieber and Japanese death metal."

Immediately, she winced. Arthur just chuckled. It was a surprising, refreshing sound, but gone as quickly as it had come.

As she was twirled around again, Alice caught a flash of black from the corner of her eye. Six men in suits were beginning to close in on them from different corners of the room. From the deliberate, efficient way they moved, Alice knew they could only be security personnel. She tensed. "Arthur," she hissed. "I think we have a problem."

Arthur bent his head closer. "Relax. Pretend you didn't see them." Acting upon his own words, Arthur continued to spin them around the floor as if nothing were wrong. Only Alice felt the deliberate turning in their dance, as Arthur guided them faster and faster towards the garden exit.

Their plans were foiled by the appearance of another security guard, cutting them off from the side. Forced to retreat, Arthur had no choice but to back them towards the only space that was free, a darker corner of the room where the heavy drapes cloaked the guests there in long shadows.

Alice gulped, watching from around Arthur's shoulder as the men moved closer and closer. They were unobtrusive enough that none of the other guests paid them any heed, but she could see that they had a very clear goal in mind.

She and Arthur had been discovered.


	11. Act Two, Scene Five

**[Act Two, Scene Five]**

"What are we going to do?" Alice whispered, her eyes darting to and from the fast-approaching guards. They could attempt to make a break for it, but even if they miraculously made it off the grounds, Alice had no idea where they were. It would be just their luck to be miles away from help, civilisation, or even a decent phone line.

"I hope you have a better plan than 'run for your life'," she whispered to Arthur, who'd backed them as far as they could go. Confined in the circle of his arms with the cool wall at her back, Alice didn't know whether she felt more protected – or trapped. "Because that's all I've got."

Arthur didn't reply for several beats. He shot a quick glance at the men, before looking back down at her with something unrecognisable glinting in his eyes. With his face as impassive as ever, the next words that tumbled from his lips were as out-of-the-blue as they were outrageous.

"Quick, give me a kiss," he said.

… _That_ Alice did not expect.

It was such an uncharacteristic thing for Arthur to say – the words too smooth and too practiced to be spontaneous – that, despite her shock and sudden nervousness, an incredulous laugh erupted from her lips. "Do you use that line on every girl you meet?"

With her hands flat against his chest, she felt, rather than saw, him twitch. Alice knew her words must have hit the metaphorical nail on the head. Although she didn't particularly like the idea of being 'just another girl' to Arthur, the mental image of the uptight man going around kissing random women in this fashion was so absurd that she couldn't help giggling.

The confused, almost put-out look that flashed across his face was indication enough that whatever reaction he'd expected from Alice, _this_ was definitely not one he'd been hoping for. In the end, Alice was saved from working out what to do altogether, when Arthur dipped his head down and captured her smiling lips with his.

The giggles abruptly died in her throat, swallowed by the light brush of his lips against hers. As Arthur tilted his head closer to deepen the contact, Alice's wide eyes slowly slid shut, the overwhelming physical sensations instantly replacing the shock she felt. The kiss was simple, and gentlemanly, but his lips were soft and ever-so-careful against hers, and suddenly, it was as if everything else – the room, the people, the entire situation – had dropped away. There was only her, and him, and this kiss.

'More', her body cried as it unconsciously melted into him, but all too soon Arthur was drawing away, breaking from intimate connection to rest his forehead gently on hers. He was so close she could see the amber flecks in his brown eyes, and the tiny freckle that dotted the side of his nose where the mask didn't quite cover.

"…You do know that this is the most commonly used diversion trope in the romance genre, right?" Alice whispered breathlessly when she'd finally found her voice, parroting the words that her undergraduate English professor would surely be snapping at this very moment. Professor Behn had loved nothing more than to poke fun at the trashy Harlequin novels so many of her students had secretly enjoyed reading. Strangely, it was the only coherent thought running through her mind at that moment.

A rare, lopsided smile blossomed on Arthur's face, crinkling at the corners of his eyes. The expression was so endearing in its sheepishness that it sent another wave of butterflies fluttering madly through Alice's stomach. "Well, I'm not exactly known for my originality," he replied dryly. "…Is it working?"

The heavy hand that suddenly clamped over Arthur's shoulder was answer enough. It instantly shook Alice from her kiss-induced stupor to the very real danger they both now faced.

"Excuse me, sir—" the security guard began.

He never had the chance to finish the sentence.

In one smooth motion, Arthur released Alice, spinning around to punch the man squarely in the jaw. Before anyone had the time to react, he was already reaching for the hefty bronze vase on the tea table to their right. With one arching throw, it sailed over the crowd, smashing into the nearest chandelier with a deafening crash.

Millions of dollars of Swarovski crystal rained down like hail as pandemonium broke loose on the dance floor. Panicked screams filled the once carefree room as the guests raced for cover, tripping over each other in their haste to get to the doors.

"It never does work," Arthur commented blandly, before grabbing Alice by the wrist and pulling her towards the exit. "I think your plan sounds like a very good one, right about now."

Amidst the chaos, the pair disappeared.


	12. Act Two, Scene Six

**[Act Two, Scene Six]**

Despite the lateness of the hour, the air outside was surprisingly warm. Light dew had settled over the landscaped lawns, and the long blades of grass were cold and damp against Alice's bare ankles as she and Arthur raced towards the cover of the bushes further in the distance.

Sounds of the party faded away as they burst into the rose garden, panting heavily for breath. Here the path narrowed, and dangerously sharp briars entwined around the fragrant red and white blossoms on either side, the moonlight tinting the velvet-soft petals in shades of midnight and blue.

There were no signs of their pursuers.

"You know," Alice said thoughtfully, after she'd caught her breath. "Those guards seemed pretty polite. I don't think they wanted to hurt us, and they didn't have guns. Perhaps we could have worked something out with their employer."

Arthur stared at her for a long moment. "…You always see the best in people, don't you?"

Alice wrinkled her nose. "You say it like it's a bad thing."

Arthur gave a half-shrug in response. "It is, if you're the self-preserving type," he replied. "People rarely, if ever, live up to your expectations, and if you give them a chance to benefit themselves by hurting you, they will."

Listening to his bleak, almost callous words, Alice was struck by how much Arthur reminded her of her father in that instant. Cho Jun Xiang, too, had written off the human race, perhaps as a result of all the corruption and greed he'd encountered festering beneath the whitewashed clockwork of the Hong Kong bureaucratic system. Alice wondered what'd caused Arthur to become so cynical and embittered at so young an age, but something held her back from asking. It wasn't her place to pry.

"Maybe you're right, but I'll take my chances," she said instead. "In my experience, most people just need someone to give them the benefit of the doubt."

"...The benefit of the doubt." Scepticism dripped from Arthur's voice.

"Yes," she insisted softly. Alice thought of the girls who she taught English to, in the juvenile detention centre not far from where she lived. When she had first signed up to volunteer in the tutoring programme that the government had set up in hopes of raising numeracy and literacy rates among 'troubled youth', it'd been to help herself more than anything else. She wanted to be braver, and stronger, to be more forceful and self-assured like so many of her peers were – like Dinah was. And so she'd gone, heart in her mouth, to stand terrified amongst a group of sullen, mocking girls with eyes too old for their years. 'Go back to where you come from, little rich girl. You don't belong here.'

For months, it was an unmitigated disaster. But Alice persisted, week after week, doggedly appearing every Saturday morning without fail, and gradually, what had been just a particularly distasteful but necessary duty turned into genuine compassion and concern. More often than not, these girls had experienced – and committed – more cruel and neglectful and violent acts than Alice, with her sheltered, privileged upbringing, could even begin to comprehend. And even though most of her students never got past their hatred and resentment, there were a handful that began to open up to Alice, as time wore on. It was slow, and it was incremental, but they began to think about turning their lives around.

Somewhere along the way, these girls had lost hope in themselves because the system had lost hope in them. But they weren't evil people, or even bad people, necessarily. Just… stuck. And Alice knew without a doubt that her reluctant students had taught her more about life, and second chances, than anything they'd ever learnt from her.

"If you give people a chance to be altruistic, there's a chance that they will," she said, her words gaining momentum. "There's always a choice."

"And you seriously believe that." They'd dispensed with their masks during their flight from the manor house, and it only made the derision that flashed in Arthur's eyes all the more obvious.

"Everyone deserves a chance, Arthur," she argued doggedly, even though she knew very well that her words were falling on deaf ears. It would appear that they would have to agree to disagree on this point. "Sometimes, you just… have to have faith in people."

Arthur stared at her, a completely unreadable expression on his face.

"What?" she asked self-consciously.

"Nothing," he said, turning away. "I'm simply trying to work out whether I find that incredibly admirable or exceedingly naïve."

Alice laughed. "Go with exceedingly naïve. Most people do."

Even Arthur had to smile at that. As she watched the curve of his lips turn upwards, Alice was suddenly reminded of where that mouth had been, not too long ago. Now, no longer madly running for her life or reacting to immediate danger, her heart abruptly caught up with her head as the full force of what'd happened hit her in the gut. Immediately, the blood rushed to her face, and her hand reached up reflexively to touch her lips.

Lips that Arthur had _kissed_.

"Alice?" Sensing the sudden change in her demeanour, Arthur gazed down at her, concern evident in his eyes.

"You kissed me," she said dazedly.

Arthur shifted awkwardly. "Uh, about that…" he answered, clearing his throat. "I might have taken undue advantage of the situation. I didn't know what I was thinking. I _wasn't_ thinking."

Alice blinked dreamily, still half-lost in her own thoughts. "…It was my first kiss," she murmured, before suddenly realising how pathetic that sounded. She was twenty-one years old, for heaven's sake! Hastily, she babbled out an explanation. "Well, there was this incident in third grade, so it wasn't technically my first kiss—"

Arthur looked pained. "Alice—" he began.

"No, don't," she said, cutting him off. She knew he was going to apologise. She didn't want him to apologise. "It doesn't mean anything, I understand." She looked down, unable to meet his eyes. "Don't worry about it."

Instead of assuaging his guilt as she'd hoped, her words just seemed to make the situation worse. The lines on Arthur's face deepened, as he, too, looked away. "Look, Alice, I—"

Whatever he'd planned to say was cut off by a sudden movement in the bushes in front of them. Both Alice and Arthur froze. The shadows shifted, revealing the deceptively frail figure of the elusive Mr. Wong. Silver-framed spectacles glinted in the moonlight, hiding the expression in his narrow eyes.

"Well, well, Miss Cho." The subservient tones in his mild, amicable voice were chillingly mocking. "So this is where you've been hiding."

If Alice had been looking carefully at his face, she would have realised that something was somewhat off about the lines of Mr. Wong's jaw, the tilt of his nose.

But Alice did not look up.

Instead, her attention was absorbed by the metallic gleam of the revolver he held in one hand.


	13. Act Two, Scene Seven

**[Act Two, Scene Seven]**

"Mr. Wong," Alice said shakily. There was a noticeable tremor in the white-knuckled fingers that gripped at the fabric of her dress. "Is this all your doing? Was your phone-call, and everything about my father's supposed accident, all just an orchestrated ruse?" Despite all evidence pointing to the contrary, the irrational, optimistic side of her hoped he would deny her sharp allegations.

Instead, the man just laughed. "You've always been a smart girl, Miss Cho. When did you figure it out?"

"Why are you doing this?" she asked pleadingly, question-for-question. "What do you want with me?"

Mr. Wong smirked. "What I want is very simple," he replied. "I want a little piece of information about your precious father, and you're going to help me get it."

"My father trusted you! I trusted you!" she cried. "Why are you doing this?!"

"I've been Cho Jun Xiang's secretary for over fifteen years," he replied, voice light, for all the world sounding like he was chatting to her over tea. "And I confess, I am growing rather tired of the position. It's a dull, thankless job, and I should very much like to see what life's like on the other side of the desk."

"I'll never help you!" she said fiercely, although the quaver in her voice betrayed her false bravado.

Mr. Wong laughed. "How quaint, presuming that you actually have a choice in the matter." Raising his arm, he levelled the gun at Alice. "Extraction may require you to be alive, my dear, but no one ever said that you had to be in one piece."

With the same flinty smile on his face, he cocked the gun and pulled the trigger.

* * *

Distantly, Alice heard someone scream her name, but it was lost in the deafening sound of a gunshot firing and the blood roaring in her head. Alice closed her eyes, expecting the excruciating impact of a bullet tearing through muscle and bone marrow, but instead, all she felt was the scrape of the rocky, pebbled ground as she was shoved to one side, the force of the sudden movement sending her sprawling.

When she could finally see past the stars in her eyes, Mr. Wong was standing over a keeled-over Arthur. He was panting in short, wheezing gasps, his hand pressed against his right shoulder. When he withdrew it slowly, Alice saw, to her growing horror, that it was wet, stained in the dark-rust colour of fresh blood.

"How touching," Mr. Wong said in sardonic tones, a wry grin twisting his lips. As he took another step towards Arthur, a frantic Alice searched around in desperation for some way of stopping this man who'd clearly lost his mind. It was by pure chance that her fingers brushed against one of the fist-sized rocks lining the gravel path. In a panicked frenzy, she hefted a rock in both hands, hurling it wildly in Mr. Wong's direction.

God himself must have had a hand in that throw, for it miraculously managed to strike the man square in the forehead. The man crumpled to the ground, unconscious, the gun falling beside him with a jarring thump. Immediately, Alice was rushing towards the injured Arthur, falling to her knees by his side. "Oh my God, Arthur," she cried, reaching out for him, but he merely waved her away, getting unsteadily to his feet.

"Come on, we've got to go," he bit out. The gunshot had alerted security of their whereabouts, and already the grounds by the manor were swarming with guards, all headed rapidly in their direction. "Run!" he said, gritting his teeth against the pain. "Go!"

And so, for the second time that night, Alice ran as if the hounds of hell were snapping at her heels, Arthur not two paces behind her. Moments later they'd burst out of the rose garden to find themselves nearing the entrance of a vast hedge maze, its thick, leafy walls stretching up high over their heads. There was no time to admire the impressive structure. Goal in sight, the pair quickly disappeared into the maze's shadowed depths.

Leaves rustled.

High above, the crescent moon slowly disappeared behind a cloud.


	14. Act Two, Scene Eight

**[Act Two, Scene Eight]**

Inside the maze, the long shadows grew and gathered, dancing in gloomy silhouettes along the walls. Alice wasn't sure how long she and Arthur ran, but as each bend and turn and four-way intersection merged into one dizzying rush of dead ends and green foliage, she could only hope that they'd eventually find their way out.

She had thoroughly lost all sense of direction and her tired lungs were burning for air when Arthur suddenly gave a groan of pain, collapsing unceremoniously to the ground. Alice spun around, turning in his direction.

There was so much blood.

For a second Alice could only stare in wide-eyed horror at the expansive patch of viscous scarlet soaking his once pristine white dress shirt and pressed dark suit. The coppery tang of newly-shed blood mixed in with the lingering crisp accents of Arthur's cologne, and she had to grip desperately at something – _anything_ – in order to fight back her swiftly rising nausea.

Alice squeezed her eyes shut, counting backwards from ten as she dredged up whatever memories she still could of the compulsory first aid class from her senior year of high school. When she was certain she'd finally managed to get a firm grip on herself (she'd be no use to either of them in a state of mindless panic, she knew), Alice inhaled a deep, steadying breath, trying to ignore the repulsive smells assaulting her nose, and moved as calmly as she could to kneel beside the injured Arthur.

"Arthur?" she tried. Arthur glanced up, his jaw clenched so tightly that Alice could hear his teeth grinding together. He was clearly in a state of agony, but Alice was relieved to see that his eyes were surprisingly lucid. Good. It meant he hadn't gone into shock – yet.

"I'm going to need your Swiss knife," she said quietly, by way of explanation, before quickly reaching into his pant pocket to fish the object out. Now was really not the time to be observing proper etiquette and the strict rules of personal space.

' _Stop the blood flow. Put pressure on the wound_ _._ _'_

Alice's hands shook so badly that she almost sliced her own hands open when she began to systemically rip the abundant material of her skirt in long strips, with the assistance of the tiny blade that was proving itself to be surprisingly indispensable over the course of the nightmarish evening. Alice worked as fast and as efficiently as she could, until only the underlining and bodice of the once gorgeous dress remained. The scratchy material was diaphanous, insubstantial and utterly inappropriate for bandaging a paper-cut let alone a gun wound, but it was all they had.

Arthur only cried out once when she began winding over the perforated area. It was high enough on his shoulder that it didn't appear to have punctured anything vital, but her medical knowledge was limited to high school biology and the occasional episode of _Grey's Anatomy_. By the time she had tied together a clumsy knot, Alice was swaying on her knees and trying desperately not to vomit. Her hands were slick with a warm, sticky substance, and she wiped it hastily on herself before her mind could dwell on what it really was. It left dark, scarlet streaks, a child's finger-painting on the gauzy white layer of underlining, and immediately began to stiffen like drying acrylic paint.

"Thanks," Arthur said, forcing a smile despite the lines of pain etching his handsome face. It came out more as a grimace, but Alice could see the gratitude in his glazed brown eyes.

It was at this point, to her utter shame, that Alice began to cry. The strain, stress and sheer emotional overload of the last twenty-four hours wracked her thin, shivering frame as she burrowed her head into her knees, shaking with heaving, silent sobs. "I-I'm so sorry! If I hadn't gotten you into this mess–"

"Alice!" Arthur's voice cracked out like a whip. "This isn't your fault!"

She shook her head madly, the words pouring out in one fervent wave. "But if it w-weren't for me you wouldn't be here and you wouldn't have been s-shot and now you're hurt and I can't call an ambulance and oh God you could you could die–"

"Alice! None of this is your fault!"

Shocked at the sudden raising of his voice (she'd never heard Arthur raise his voice), she lifted her head, looking up into his dark, dark eyes that were suddenly bright with a terrible ferocity.

"If I hadn't—" he cut off abruptly, turning his head away, but not before Alice had caught the strange expression that flashed over his face. It looked almost like…

 _Guilt?_

"Just… just please stop crying," he said at last. Reaching into his right pocket, Arthur pulled out a folded white handkerchief, handing it to Alice with the same air of awkward helplessness most men defaulted to when faced with a sobbing woman.

It was a long while before the sniffles stopped, and by the time Alice could actually speak without her voice shaking, the once-pressed handkerchief had turned into a wrinkled, sopping mess. Alice was fairly certain that Arthur wouldn't want it back.

"I'm sorry," she said with a lingering hiccup. With a blotchy face and a decimated skirt and her hair in utter disarray, Alice was certain she must look a fright, but at this point, she couldn't bring herself to care. "I'm not normally like this."

The huff of air that Arthur let out was the only laugh he could manage. "Given the circumstances, I wouldn't exactly call this a 'normal' situation."

"How are you feeling?" she asked, tentatively broaching the subject.

"I've been better," he replied wryly.

Alice bit her lip. "I'm sorry."

"Alice."

"Yes?"

"Quit apologising."

"I'm sorry!" It was a knee-jerk reflex.

Another huff of almost laughter from Arthur, before the two descended into silence.

Alice stared up into the narrow patch of sky above, lost in her own dark thoughts. "Wake up. Wake up. Wake up." she mumbled half-consciously to herself, wishing this was all a terrible nightmare.

"…Sorry?" Arthur asked, not quite catching the mumbled words.

Alice shook her head. "…It's nothing."

Another silence.

"I just–" she began, feeling more confused and betrayed and helpless than she'd ever been her entire life. She thought of the Mr. Wong she'd thought she knew, with his kind smiles and quiet nature, the absent-minded way he would push up the glasses that constantly slid down his nose, and how utterly different that'd been to the cold and calculatingly cruel Mr. Wong she'd just seen. "I don't understand. Mr. Wong – he was like a completely different person. It doesn't make any sense. How could he just—?"

Arthur pursed his lips. "Still holding on to your faith in humanity, I see." It would have been a completely callous statement had there not been a note of genuine curiosity to his voice.

Alice flinched, clinging onto that faith like a particularly stubborn limpet. She couldn't – _wouldn't_ – let Mr. Wong's actions make her disillusioned with the world. To do so would only mean a double victory over her.

"One man is hardly an accurate representation of all mankind," she replied mulishly, and then– "I'm not stupid, you know. I never said that there weren't bad people in this world, people who will pretend to care for you and then stab you in the back. I guess I just… didn't expect Mr. Wong to be one of them."

Arthur clenched his jaw. "He wouldn't be the only one."

Alice looked at him curiously. The way he said that seemed too personal to be just a casual statement of ideological difference. Maybe he'd been betrayed before, too. Maybe… maybe that's what made him so disenchanted with the world? Briefly she toyed with the idea of Arthur as a jilted lover, left at the altar or betrayed by his one true love, before quickly discarding such ridiculously melodramatic notions.

"Mr. Wong had always been so kind," she said instead. "Now it's like all of that was an entire hoax, like I'd been living some elaborate lie. I don't even know what's real anymore."

Arthur remained silent for a long moment.

"Before your father's secretary tried to shoot you," he said at last, changing the subject. "He said something about extracting information."

Alice shuddered, not wanting to think about all the creative ways one could use to interrogate and to coerce. "Yes, well, I hope for my sake he won't resort to torture."

"...I don't think he meant it figuratively."

Alice blinked, momentarily confused. What else could he have meant?

"You don't mean…" she said slowly, suddenly recalling a _Nature_ article she'd skimmed over while waiting for her father in his office when he'd been delayed at a meeting. It'll been lying on his desk, and she'd been bored, and it had been either that or the Compendium of Laws on his shelf. At the tender age of fourteen, the choice had been obvious.

"Like… like dream extraction?" she asked, in the same disbelieving tone an atheist would use when discussing the existence of the divine. "But isn't that completely in the realms of theoretical metaphysics? Like quantum mechanics, and multiple dimensions and time travel, things like that? Are you telling me it's physically possible? That it's real?"

His lips curled into an ironic grin as Arthur replied, "It's very real, Alice."

"How—"

"—You know how I said I'm writing my thesis on intellectual property law and the free market?" he interrupted, having already anticipated the question tumbling from her lips. "Well, that's not entirely true."

Arthur turned, meeting her dubious gaze with dead serious eyes. "I also specialise in subconscious security."


	15. Act Two, Scene Nine

**[Act Two, Scene Nine]**

"…You're not pulling my tail, right?" Alice asked slowly, briefly wondering if Arthur had gone into shock and she'd simply missed it. He didn't look like he was joking, but then again, Arthur possessed one of the best poker faces she'd ever seen.

Arthur shook his head. "The fact that Mr. Wong is trying to access your father's secrets through you is probably a good indication that your father has already been trained against extraction."

Alice frowned. "But if my father already knew about extraction, why didn't he train me as well?"

"My guess is that Mr. Cho was trained in order to prevent inadvertently leaking state secrets. It may have never crossed his mind that anyone would attempt to extract any personal information about him through his daughter."

Alice chewed her lip. She supposed that made sense.

"What do you know about extraction?" Arthur asked.

"Not much, just general theory, from what little I've read about it." she admitted. "It's like stealing information from a person's subconscious while in a shared dream-state, right? Like mind-rape, almost."

Arthur noticeably twitched. "More or less," he conceded. "Although calling it 'mind-rape' is a bit extreme. The subject of the dream – the 'Mark' – usually doesn't come to any harm during the extraction process. And if it's a successful extraction, he or she wouldn't even know that it'd occurred at all."

Alice raised her brows. "If a rapist drugs his victim first, so the victim comes to no real psychological harm because they don't remember being violated, does that make the act any more justifiable?"

"That's… different." Arthur grimaced, looking away. "Extraction's just a job. It's not – technically speaking – legal, but it's still a job."

Alice stared, utterly thrown by this indifferent response. "But I don't understand!" she cried. "I thought you study IP law, and 'subconscious security', as you say. Isn't that to protect people's creative assets and from having their subconscious invaded without their knowledge or consent?"

"In essence, yes."

"Well, don't you do that because you believe in, I don't know, an underlying fundamental right to personal privacy and the importance of protecting that right, or something along those lines?"

Arthur stared at her, mystified. "…No?"

"Well, why _do_ you do it, then?"

Arthur smiled. "Because there's nothing quite like it." His reply was immediate and matter-of-fact, but there was something in his voice that hinted at a passion and unbridled joy for what he did. "And because… I like the challenge."

Her jaw dropped. "That's all?"

"Well, it pays well, too. Do I need any other reason?"

"Well, no, I guess, but—" To the idealistic Alice, who saw life in terms of values and meaning and a higher moral purpose, the whole idea of choosing a career path without an ideological foundation was incomprehensible. Of course, she had plenty of classmates who had chosen to study law for more pragmatic reasons – prestige, power, or simply to earn a decent living – but most of them still believed in the underlying principles of the justice system, and the contributions they would make to it as lawyers.

Arthur smirked at her confusion. "Let me guess," he said. "The reason why you want to become a mediator is because you 'want to help people'."

"Well, of course!" she replied, utterly bewildered. "Why else?"

Arthur sighed, shaking his head. "Why else, indeed."

Her eyes narrowed. It sounded almost as if he were laughing at her, and Alice wasn't sure she liked her beliefs laughed at. "Tell me about extraction," she said, returning back to the topic. "What do extractors do, exactly?"

Arthur shifted his body to lean more heavily against the hedge wall at his back, wincing when the tentative actions aggravated his wound more. "When you are dreaming, your natural defences are lowered. Any secret you have, any piece of information in your head is far more vulnerable to theft. A good extractor can enter a subject's consciousness and… uplift that information by entering the same dream-state as the subject. For more difficult jobs, extractors will work in teams. An architect will design and construct the dream-space, which the subject is then brought into."

"So it's not actually the subject's dream?"

"No. The dreamer is usually the extractor, who learns the design of the dream-space from the architect. The subject simply fills the dream-space with his or her own subconscious, in the form of projections."

"Projections?"

"People, animals, living embodiments of a person's consciousness."

Alice frowned thoughtfully. "So what do you do?" she asked curiously. "How do you secure a mind from extraction?"

"The projections of a person's subconscious are like the body's white blood cells," Arthur explained. "Eventually, your subconscious starts to pick up on the intrusion, and goes looking for the dreamer. When they do, they converge and destroy."

She gasped. "You mean they _kill_ the extractor?"

Arthur's lips twitched at her horrified reaction. "Not physically – but yes. You die, and then you wake up. Usually."

Alice shuddered. The cavalier way Arthur spoke of death – even if it was only in dreams – was more than a little disturbing. "So your job's to speed up the process?"

"Pretty much," he replied. "The faster the subject realises they're in a dream, the faster the projections militarise. Hence the training."

Alice nodded, falling silent. For a long time she stared down at her hands without speaking, needing the time to gather her thoughts and properly absorb the astounding information that had been thrown at her in the space of minutes. She thought about Arthur, with his ability to navigate both the dreaming and waking states with such lucidity, and found herself suddenly both envious and terrified. How on earth did he manage to stay sane in that perpetually hypersensitive, vigilant state?

"Do you ever… lose yourself?" she wondered. "Aren't you afraid that one day, you won't be able to tell the difference between dreaming and waking?"

Wordlessly, Arthur reached into his right pocket and pulled out a tiny object which he carefully held between his thumb and forefinger. The half-translucent cube glinted in the moonlight, and Alice saw that it was a small red die. "That's why we have totems."

"Totems?"

"An object you can carry with you at all times that will behave in a certain way only when you're in physical space," he explained. "Mine's a loaded die, but it can be anything really – a spinning top, a weighted chess piece – so long as only you know the weight and feel of it."

"So you won't be caught out in someone else's dream."

"Precisely."

"But how do you know you won't be caught in your own dream?" Alice asked. At Arthur's puzzled look, she tried to articulate the scrambled, half-formed thoughts in her head. "Well, you know the weight of the die, how it should roll, where it will land – which means that your subconscious, by default, also knows it. So how can you be sure, in your own dream, that your mind isn't fooling itself?"

Arthur's brows furrowed, still not quite understanding her meaning. "In dream-space, I can control how the die rolls."

"Yes, but your subconscious knows this because your mind already knows it. If your subconscious is clever enough to control how the die rolls in a dream, can't it just as easily constrain itself and constrain the die to fall the same way as in physical space? So how can you be sure that you're not trapped in your own dream – that you're actually in reality?"

Arthur blinked. "I suppose you can't." he said finally, before turning to her with an arch of his brow. "But then again, can you _ever_ be sure that the reality you perceive is actually 'real'?"

His question dredged up sudden thoughts of her mother, the elegant, accomplished woman who'd given Alice her large brown eyes and dimpled smile, a woman now reduced to a shell of what she once was, no longer able to distinguish between what was happening around her and what was happening in her head. _Ma Ma_ , who'd buried rice in the garden because "someone had poisoned it", who'd made Alice sit and listen to the voices only she herself could hear. _Ma Ma_ , kitchen knife in hand, screaming at her husband with wild, frightened, bloodshot eyes – "I know what you want! I know who you're working for! I won't let you take me or my baby away!"

She'd been too young at the time to understand why her mother was acting so strangely, why the _Ma Ma_ who'd played the piano while she danced and lectured her on her posture and kissed her cheek when she tucked her in at night began to drift in and out of her life. The sometimes sad, sometimes frightened and sometimes uncontrollably angry stranger who took her mother's place terrified Alice, but her father refused to tell her what was wrong.

It had been her aunt who'd eventually explained it to her, in as simplistic and patient a manner as a psychiatrist unused to dealing with children could manage. "We all live in our own private bubble of reality," she'd said, using little diagrams to illustrate her point. "We perceive the world as being a certain way because that's the only way our brain has programmed itself to interpret the incoming stimuli. We only appear to share the same common reality because most people's brains are wired in more or less the same way. But there are people like your mother, whose wiring is different, see? And to her, the things she sees and hears that you can't – they're as equally real as the things you _can_ see and hear. Do you understand?"

She did.

"...Reality is a state of mind," Alice murmured absentmindedly to herself.

Arthur looked at her quizzically.

"Never mind," she said, quickly changing the subject. "Are there any side-effects to shared dreaming?" After all, as her father often reminded her, nothing came without a price.

Arthur's eyes grew distant, as he, too, lost himself in his own memories. "Well, I've gotten pretty used to dying," he said dryly. "And I don't dream naturally any more. I can't."

"Some might call that a blessing," Alice said, after a pause.

Arthur looked at her curiously, but did not comment. From places not too far off, they could hear the sounds of their pursuers combing the winding paths. The security guards would've surely have had the maze surrounded by now.

They were running out of time.

"Alice," Arthur finally said, his voice bleak. "I don't want to say this, but I don't know how long we can stay here, and I don't think escape is going to be likely at this point. But those people, they'll stop at nothing to extract the information they want to bring your father down. Is there anything you know – anything at all – that they might want?"

Slowly, Alice gave a hesitant nod.

Arthur's brows furrowed.

"I…" he began, hesitating for a second before slowly reaching out to gently cover one of her hands with his. Alice shivered when he ever-so-lightly brushed a calloused thumb against the sensitive underside of her wrist, her pulse beating madly.

"I- I don't want to see you hurt," he said, swallowing convulsively. "But if they find us, I don't know if I'll be able to protect you. The only thing I can do at this point is teach you how to secure your mind, but in order to do that, you have to let me help you." Arthur closed his eyes briefly, his face fighting to keep its generally impassive features, before he turned back to her. "I need to know what it is you want to hide."

Alice blinked, chewing nervously on her bottom lip. "You need me to trust you," she whispered.

He turned away, jaw clenching, looking almost as if he were waging an inner battle with himself. "…Yes," he finally said, turning back to her.

It was then, lost in that hedge maze with dangers unknown and her future uncertain, that Alice gazed into the steady, pain-glazed eyes of a man who'd taken a bullet on her behalf without a second thought – a man who stirred up the most peculiar, most complex feelings she'd ever felt – and took a leap of faith.


	16. Act Two, Scene Ten

**[Act Two, Scene Ten]**

Pushing aside her father's warnings and her own misgivings (the product of a lifetime of secrecy, she presumed), Alice anchored herself in Arthur's amber-flecked eyes and grasped for courage. He was gazing at her with that steady, infinitely patient look of his, as if he had all the time in the world to listen to what she had to say, and it was only the blood that was beginning to soak through the makeshift bandage that indicated time was the last thing Arthur had on his side.

"When I was twelve," Alice began quietly. "My mother was diagnosed with acute paranoid schizophrenia."

Staring down into her lap, she did not see Arthur's eyes widen.

"Late onset, the doctor said, although back then, I didn't understand what any of this meant." She only remembered the fits, the silence, the stigma, the shame. "My father wanted to send her away to a private institution to be treated, but my mother refused to go. So my aunt – _Ma Ma_ 's youngest sister – came to live with us. At first, it worked out well enough. Auntie was unmarried, with no family of her own to look after, and, more importantly, she was a successful psychiatrist who could cater to my mother's needs."

Alice bit her lip. "My mother would have her good days and her bad days. On her good days, she was almost like her old self – witty, self-assured, kind, loving – but on her bad days…" Alice trailed off, reluctant to elaborate. "Well, it took its toll on all of us."

'How can this madwoman be my wife?' she remembered overhearing her father demand to her aunt, one evening when he'd thought she'd already gone to bed. Her mother had been particularly difficult that day, and Alice had run back upstairs before she could hear her aunt's reply.

"My father tried to do his best by her, but he was never the most openly affectionate of men, or the most patient. And there was always work, and his public image to uphold, so gradually, he spent less and less time alone with my mother _,_ until he stopped seeing her altogether, unless they were forced to be in the same room together. To him, my mother's illness began to define who she was."

Caught between the two, Alice had tried her very best to keep their dysfunctional family from falling apart, but it only seemed to drive them both even further apart. And then… "And then," she said haltingly, forming the words of a tale she had told no one else. "One day, I must have been sixteen or seventeen, I walked in on my father and aunt talking in the kitchen. It had been innocent enough, but there was something in his eyes, when he gently took her hand in his. He was looking at my aunt the same way he used to look at _Ma Ma_ , back when she wasn't sick. Back when… when he still loved her."

The tumbler in Alice's hand had shattered on the floor in a cacophony of tiny glass shards, and her aunt had immediately snatched her hand away, spinning around to meet the shocked eyes of a seventeen year old Alice with apologetic, panicked ones of her own. At the time, Alice didn't know who looked more horrified – her aunt, her father, or herself.

"Of course, my aunt immediately left after that, returning to her life back to Shanghai. With her gone, my father shipped _Ma Ma_ to a private psychiatric centre in England, hoping they would be able to provide the care she needed. She'd been going through a particularly bad patch at the time, refusing to take her meds, and he couldn't cope anymore."

After that incident, life with just her and her father had gone on in much the same way as it always had, but Alice had never gotten used to the lonely, too-silent house with her mother and her aunt both gone. _Ma Ma_ had been larger-than-life, filling each corner and crevice with her spirit and her passion and her life, and her absence had been like a sudden hollow void in that stately family home that no longer felt like 'family', or 'home'.

"Did your father continue to see your aunt after that?" Arthur asked tentatively. His eyes were bright with curiosity, as well as another emotion she couldn't place.

Alice shrugged. "Who knows for sure? It'd been by pure chance that I'd walked in on that scene I was never to have meant to see." Her voice grew bitter. "My father's business trips to Shanghai increased after that, so it would be naïve to presume that he was going purely for 'business'."

Arthur looked pensive. "Do you blame your aunt, then?"

Alice sighed. "I wanted to, I really did," she admitted. "For a while I was so angry at everyone – my father for being unfaithful, my aunt for being weak, my mother for being sick. But… I don't blame her, not really. I could see that my aunt really loved her older sister, that she genuinely wanted to help her get better. If it weren't for her time and devoted care, who knows where my mother would be now?"

'27% of schizophrenic patients make an attempt on their own lives', she remembered reading. '12% succeed.'

"I don't know how it happened, exactly, but by the time anyone of us had realised, we'd long fallen into a situation beyond our control." Alice sighed. "What was I supposed to do?" she continued helplessly. "How can you choose between two people whom you love equally? I didn't want to be complicit to my father's infidelity. 'In sickness, in health, for better or worse', he married my mother! Every part of me wanted to tell her the truth. She deserved to know. But my father had been so tired and defeated and worn-out for so long, and the truth would only break my mother's heart."

And because Alice had wanted them both to be happy – as happy as anyone could be, under the circumstances – she had kept silent.

Her shoulders slumped. Her next words were so soft that Arthur had to strain to catch them. "My father's too honourable to divorce my mother, but too selfish to let my aunt go. And even if he could divorce my mother, he'd never be able to marry my aunt, or even be with her openly. The scandal would tear our family apart at the seams."

Minutes passed where neither Alice nor Arthur spoke. What could one really say to that?

Alice inhaled a shaky breath.

"…I'm scared, Arthur," she whispered. "If Mr. Wong finds out about this – if he takes it to the press – I can't imagine what the news will do to _Ma Ma_." Being so cut-off from everything at Seacliff, maybe the doctors and nurses there could keep it from her. But there was always television, and newspapers, and magazines… it would be foolish and futile to try and keep her in the dark forever."

"Hey," Arthur said, entwining his fingers with hers and squeezing gently. His voice was heartbreakingly tender. "Hey. It'll be okay."

Alice looked up, her eyes tracing the smooth lines of his face, the strong angle of his jaw, the fathomless depths of his beautiful dark eyes.

"Arthur…" she breathed, feeling the earth shift as something shatteringly poignant welled up inside her.

Time seemed to slow as the distance closed between them. Alice leaned forward helplessly, pulled by that invisible, delicate strand of red string that had tied her heart with his, a satellite to a planet's irresistible gravity. For some reason she couldn't stop staring at Arthur's lips, and then their noses were brushing, their faces inches from each other, warm breaths mingling in the still night air. Arthur's eyes were darker than she'd ever seen, and she could feel their pulses race in syncopated beats beneath their entwined fingers. She was breathless, suspended, teetering on the edge of a precipice, and the moment stretched, unbroken, between them in a way that was as dizzyingly exquisite as it was frightening until–

"Excuse me while I interrupt this adorable little moment."

It was like being doused with a bucket of icy water. Immediately the taunt string snapped, and Alice froze, heart leaping to her throat. Whipping around, she saw Mr. Wong stumbling towards them, a large purpling bruise on his forehead from where the rock had made its mark. Gun in hand, he looked more threatening and furious than she'd ever seen.

For one horrific second, Alice's heart stopped.


	17. Act Two, Scene Eleven

**[Act Two, Scene Eleven]**

"This is becoming very trying, Miss Cho," Mr. Wong snarled. "And you, _boy_ , are proving to be more trouble than you're worth." Coolly, he raised his revolver. "Fortunately for me, you're also quite expendable."

"No!" Alice screamed, her white-knuckled hand tightening around Arthur's so tightly that she was sure her nails had pierced through skin. Without thinking, she threw herself between them, her small figure partially shielding the injured Arthur from view. "Don't shoot!"

Mr. Wong paused. "So that's how it is," he said mockingly. "How… sweet."

"Well, Miss Cho," he continued. "Let it never be said that I am an unreasonable man. Why don't you co-operate with me and tell me what I need to know, and I'll let your little boyfriend over there stay alive to take a bullet for you for another day, hmm?"

"I—" Alice began, shivering as a large gust of wind blew in from behind her. Something niggled at the back of her mind. There was something… decidedly wrong about the situation, but she couldn't for the life of her place what it was.

"I—" she tried again. A million different thoughts clamoured for attention inside her mind, and Alice desperately tried to make sense of them all over the pounding of her heart and the throbbing in her head. Frozen stiff, mindless with terror, she could only stare down at the barrel of the gun – a gun that Mr. Wong held cocked and ready in one hand.

His _right_ hand.

In one shattering instant, Alice felt her whole world tilt, the memories flashing through her mind.

" _It's the ones you place your trust in that hurt you the most."_

Mr. Wong, poised over a letter, the knuckles of his left hand smeared with blue ink.

" _How can you be sure that the reality you perceive is actually 'real'?"_

Mr. Wong, looking up from his desk, a fountain pen cradled in his spidery, awkward fingers. "Why, hello, Miss Cho."

" _Look, Alice, I—"_

Mr. Wong, handing her a pressed white handkerchief, an unspoken plea for her to just stop crying. "…Do you want to talk about it?"

"— _It's just a job."_

And suddenly, everything clicked into place.

"Mr. Wong is left-handed," she breathed in sudden revelation, watching as, before her very eyes, the gaunt features of her father's secretary melted into the face and figure of a suavely handsome Caucasian man Alice was sure she'd seen somewhere before.

The fingers that had gripped Arthur's for dear life instantly slackened, as she slowly turned to meet his horrified gaze.

"Alice—" he stammered, guilt and consternation written all over his face. It told Alice everything she needed to know.

Snatching her hand away, she stepped back, her eyes glittering with something a little more corporeal than anger. This- this couldn't be happening to her. It was like someone had taken her heart in their hands and _squeezed_ – and there was so much pain in that one agonising instant Alice didn't know whether she felt more betrayed, or disillusioned, or… or…

Nothing at all.

"… _Et tu, Brute?_ " she whispered sardonically.

"Arthur!" the other man suddenly screamed, as security burst through the hedges, roughly tackling him to the ground. Alice paid him no heed. She continued to stare numbly into Arthur's eyes (such beautiful eyes – such _liar's_ eyes) until a gunshot cracked in the air and 'Mr. Wong's' bullet finally pierced Arthur in the head.

The dream collapsed.

The world faded away.


	18. Curtain Call

" _What did she say? Arthur? God_ _d_ _am_ _m_ _it. Talk to me!"_

" _Eames, calm down! Arthur will tell us when he's ready. Right, Arthur?"_

" _Ariadne, love, I don't think you understand. Arthur, as delighted as I am to see you've finally developed a conscience, now is really not the time! If you're letting your emotions get in the way of_ — _oi, where are you going?!"_

"… _You know, Eames, you really know how to talk to people."_

" _Shut up, Chemist."  
_

* * *

 **[** **Curtain Call** **]**

When Alice awoke, she found herself back on the 6.35 to Boston. The other occupants in the carriage had mysteriously disappeared, and the carriage was devoid of everything save for a crinkled novel, a bottle of iced tea and the lone leather travel tote by her side. There was nothing to show that she'd been anything but dreaming blissful, innocent dreams, except the hole in her heart and an ache in her head and a near-invisible mark on her wrist where a needle had pricked.

'19.15' the clock above the door flashed.

Alice cried.


	19. Deck of Cards

**[Deck of Cards]**

Alice wasn't sure how she managed to get herself from the Amtrak North Station in Boston to the steps of the small apartment she shared with Dinah. Her housemate took one glance at her glassy eyes and crestfallen face before yanking her inside, wordlessly digging out the emergency stash of gourmet ice-cream from the back of their pitifully empty fridge.

True to her nature, Dinah said nothing. She asked no questions and offered no platitudes, choosing instead to give Alice what comfort she could with her familiar, implacable presence. The two girls curled up on their battered living room couch for hours without speaking, until Alice finally succumbed to an exhausted, fitful sleep with her head pillowed on her best friend's shoulder, the sticky remnants of chocolate and green tea on her lips.

* * *

" _So, Mr… ah– Arthur Elliot, is it? Do you have the information I requested?"_

* * *

The next morning, Alice found herself dialling her father's number, wanting ( _needing)_ the confirmation of his good health and happiness, if only for her own peace of mind.

It was Mr. Wong who answered the phone. "Miss Cho?"

As his voice crackled over the line, for one terrifying second, Alice was gripped with a mindless, irrational panic. _'No- he- it couldn't be-'_ "…Mr. Wong? Where- where is my father?"

"I'm sorry, Miss Cho. Your father is currently away in a meeting," he replied in apologetic tones. "Is anything wrong? I can page you through if the situation is urgent."

"No- no," she stammered, feeling incredibly foolish as the fear which had seized her immediately faded _. 'Just a dream,'_ she reminded herself. _'Just a dream.'_ "I mean, that is to say, it's nothing urgent."

"Er- well then, would you like to leave a message?" he asked awkwardly.

Same old Mr. Wong. Alice let out an almost inaudible sigh of relief as the tightly wound ball of tension inside eased a little. "I—" she began, and then stopped, struck with an inexplicable urge to ask Mr. Wong a question she'd never thought to ask before."Mr. Wong, you've been my father's secretary for so long. Are you… _happy_ with your job?"

"I'm very happy, Miss Cho. It's an honour to work for your father," he replied without hesitation. In spite of his obvious confusion, his voice was unquestionably sincere. "He is a good man. But, if it isn't too forward of me, what makes you ask?"

"I don't think I've ever thanked you, for looking after _Ba Ba_ so well for all these years."

"Ah, but it's your father who looks after _me_ ," he corrected. Even as separated as they were by thousands of miles of ocean, Alice could hear the smile in his voice. "But it's my pleasure, Miss Cho."

Alice bit her lip. "If there's anything we can do for you, please let me know?" she ventured.

"Of course."

"It's good to talk to you, Mr. Wong." (And it was. With the _real_ Mr. Wong.)

"You, too, Miss Cho," he replied. "I'll let your father know you called. He will be very pleased to hear from you, I'm sure."

"Thank you. Don't work too hard."

"Goodbye, Miss Cho. Stay safe."

When Alice hung up, she realised she was smiling.

* * *

" _We completed the extraction, sir. In regards to Cho Jun Xiang's indiscretions—"_

* * *

Time passed, as it always did.

Alice woke up, went to class, went to eat, went to sleep, and then let the process repeat itself again. If she jumped more at shadows, if she constantly scribbled on Post-It notes to keep track of where she was, if she stared a little more suspiciously at each stranger who crossed her path, no one commented on it. Only the old, grandmotherly librarian noted that Alice no longer sat at her once favourite spot in the library, and startled in her seat every time a student rally started on the lawns.

Days went by, and the 'if-only's and 'what-could-have-been's continued to play round and round Alice's tired head like a broken record that refused to _just_ _shut_ _up_ , until reality blurred with fantasy and certainty faded into doubt and she began to question whether it had even happened at all.

"Okay, consider me cracked. Are you going to tell me what's wrong?" Dinah finally asked, after a week had passed with Alice's paranoid behaviour only worsening by the day. "Because, no offense, you're starting to look like a panda."

Alice blinked.

"Don't get me wrong," Dinah hastily added, holding up a pair of brightly manicured hands. "You make a very cute panda. But I'm pretty sure you'd make a cuter fully-functioning human being."

Alice's lips twitched, in spite of herself.

"So, you gonna spill? I won't tell anyone else, I promise. Shrink's honour! …Well, shrink-in-training."

"I'm _–_ " Alice began, and then sighed heavily. "Dinah, do you think I'm losing my mind? I'm starting to suspect that I could be schizophrenic."

Her friend raised a carefully groomed eyebrow. "Do you have a history of mental illness in your family?" she asked.

Alice twitched, but said nothing.

"Well, worrying about it won't stop it any. You can't change your genes," Dinah reasoned, as cool and pragmatic as ever. Nothing seemed to ruffle or shock the girl. "Like all illnesses, you'll just have to get it diagnosed by a professional and seek treatment. But acknowledging it might be an issue is always a good first step." She smiled, reaching out to sling an affectionate arm around Alice's small shoulders. "Relax, everyone has a few screws loose. What's one or two more? Look at me – I'm certifiably insane, and they think my _brother_ is the crazy one."

She winked, and Alice had to laugh, feeling her heart lighten at her friend's lackadaisical words. "Thanks, Dinah. You always know how to make me feel better."

"I live to serve, mademoiselle," she replied with a dramatic flourish and a perfectly straight face, before the two friends burst into peals of uncontrollable giggles. When they had calmed, Dinah gave Alice a quick hug, before standing up to check on their dinner cooking in the oven. "I'm not saying it'll be easy, or that you won't be facing one of the biggest challenges of your life, if it turns out that you are," she said more quietly, the half-joking tone gone from her voice. "But no matter how screwed up you get, you'll still be you, Alice Yue-Ling Cho, and you'll have my support every step of the way."

* * *

"— _the Mark told us…"_

* * *

Two weeks later, Alice found a white tulip lying on her doorstep.

'Alice' the card read. There was no other message.

Her bag of groceries fell from her suddenly slack fingers with a thump. There could only be one person who would send her flowers – one person who would send her _this_ particular flower – and it was the one person who she was trying to convince herself didn't actually exist.

('Rosemary for remembrance, tulips for forgiveness', her mother's voice sounded in her ear.)

And suddenly, Alice found herself more furious than she'd ever been in her life. Her hands curled viciously around the tulip's slender stem as she fought the desperate, uncontrollable urge to tear the innocent thing to shreds. Before the neighbours could witness her throwing a supremely unseemly fit of rage on the doorstep, Alice hurled the tulip into the bushes of the apartment building's overgrown garden, where it quickly disappeared behind the drooping rhododendron tree and out of sight.

Alice's hands clenched so tightly that her knuckles went white. After all he'd done, and he thought a _fucking flower_ was condolence? It was nothing but a pity offering, the pathetic justification, a victor's final taunt: 'Excuse me while I tear your family to pieces, you know it's nothing personal, right? I hope you feel better soon!'

'Well,' Alice thought morbidly. 'At least I know I haven't gone crazy… yet.'

After that, Alice made sure to keep a constant, watchful eye on the newspapers as the Hong Kong elections grew ever closer, waiting with bated breath and a creeping dread for the news that would bring her whole world crashing down over her ears.

* * *

" _Yes, Mr. Elliot?"_

* * *

On September 12, Cho Jun Xiang became the Chief Executive of the Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong.

The media spoke of Mr. Cho's dedication, his impeccable work ethic, his devotion to the Hong Kong people. They speculated over his effectiveness as the central government's new leader and the changes to policy he planned to implement.

But of scandal, or whispers of infidelity, there was nothing.

A white rose lay on her doorstep when Alice arrived home that evening, a partially opened bud still wet with dew.

 _(White for secrecy. White for purity of intent.)_

Rooted in place, Alice could only stare down at the fragile gift for a long, long time. Slowly, she picked it up, fingering its velvet-soft petals before disappearing inside.

The door closed noiselessly behind her.

* * *

"… _Nothing. She knew nothing."_


	20. Full Circle

_/_ _I don't know you, but I want you_ _a_ _ll the more for that_ _  
w_ _ords fall through me and always fool me_ _a_ _nd I can't react_ _  
a_ _nd games that never amount to more than they're meant_ _w_ _ill_ _play themselves out_ _  
t_ _ake this sinking boat and point it home, we've still got tim_ _e  
r_ _aise your hopeful voice, you have a choice, you'll make it no_ _w... /_

 _(Once,_ _'Falling Slowly')_ _  
_

* * *

 **[Full Circle]**

At 6:32 on a Thursday evening, a young, impeccably dressed man stood on the platform of the grand Penn station, waiting for the Amtrak Acela Express scheduled to pass through at 6:35. Four months had passed since he'd last taken this trip from New York to Boston, and dressed in pressed black slacks and a thin navy sweater – a starched white shirt and grey tie peeking out beneath the collar – he looked like a wealthy young man hoping to make a good impression on his first date with the girl of his dreams.

(In one hand, he carried a single blue rose. In the other, nothing.)

At 6:35 on the dot, the train streaked into the station. Smoothly, the man stepped into the carriage, his steps a little too purposeful to be simply choosing a seat. A few minutes later, just as the train began to pick up speed, he quietly stepped into Carriage D.

The carriage was almost completely empty, save for a lone occupant in the furthest stall, a young woman whose face was partially hidden behind a long fall of black hair. She did not look up when he entered, too engrossed by the tattered book she held in one hand.

The man's lips twitched.

(It was 'Peter Pan', this time.)

"Excuse me," he said.

The girl froze, her hands clenching convulsively over the pages of her novel at the sound of his voice. Ever-so-slowly, she raised her head, reluctant to meet his gaze. There was a distrustful wariness in her eyes that the man had never seen before, and something that felt suspiciously like remorse shot through him with an intensity that caught him off-guard.

The man gave hesitant smile, his eyes crinkling at the corners in a manner that was as boyish as it was handsome. He gestured to the empty seat opposite hers. "Do you mind if I sit here?"

The girl sighed, setting the book gently on the table in front of her. "…What do you want from me, Arthur?" she asked instead of answering, her voice cool.

(Was his name even Arthur? …She wasn't sure any more. She wasn't sure of _anything_ any more.)

"More information? Another secret?" She laughed bitterly. "I don't know if there's anything that'll beat 'my father is having an affair with my schizophrenic mother's sister' but, please, I'll be happy to oblige." She crossed her arms. "–Well? What do you want?"

The man slid into the seat opposite hers.

"…I was hoping for a second chance," he said quietly. "A wise person once told me that everyone deserves to be given the benefit of doubt."

The girl laughed, the light sound completely devoid of humour. "Was there—" she whispered, a terrible sadness drifting beneath the bright surface of her large brown eyes. "Was there any part that wasn't a lie?"

The man looked away. "I am a cynic," he replied eventually. "I like jazz. And the offer of dinner still stands – without any ulterior motives this time."

Face impassive and carefully inscrutable (she doesn't realise how much she looked like _him_ , then), the girl simply stared at the man for a long, long time. "...I haven't quite forgiven you yet, you know."

"I wouldn't have expected you to."

"And I don't dat—" (briefly the memory of the white rose flashed before her eyes – white for secrecy, white for purity, white for _true love_ ) "— _befriend_ criminals, as a matter of principle."

The man raised a brow. "And _I_ don't pursue attachments with a previous Mark, as a matter of principle."

 _('Yet here I am,_ _'_ hung unspoken between them.)

The girl's lips parted, shocked at this matter-of-fact confession. As the heartmeltingly sheepish smile that she had only ever seen once, in places imagined, broke out over his serious features, she swore her heart skipped a beat.

Hesitantly, he offered her the rose, its colours too vivid to be found anywhere but in dreams.

"…Maybe we can work out a compromise."

* * *

 **[Finis]**


End file.
